How to Use Email Marketing Service for Free

"Make a newsletter so that everyone can keep in touch with your site via email"

Yes, it makes sense. It's a great way for people to subscribe without being bombarded with post after post, as well as a great way to maybe sell advert space. Getting people to subscribe to a list however is the tricky part.

MailChimp works to set up an email campaign. It helps you design an email format with fantastic ease. It's also quirky, which is why I love it. The only problem is their autoresponder when people subscribe is not offered to you for free.

Well that sucks. How do I notify someone of a link to download a copy of my eBook after they subscribe? This is where Google Documents steps in.

With Google Documents, you can create a sign up form for folks to add themselves to your subscribers list. Once someone signs up, you can provide them with a thank you message. This is where you can type in your HTML code with a link to whatever you like. When you are ready to send out a newsletter in your email marketng campaign, you simply copy your list from Google Documents over to MailChimp.

Now you are providing your free product whilst growing an email list and not paying a monthly fee. How great is that?

Creating My Free Product

I created the 49 Free Ways to Increase Blog Traffic eBook before creating The Blog Plan site. I knew it was important to provide a resource that people will (hopefully) want, need and often refer to when ideas were needed. I don't want to miss an opportunity for someone to sign up right from the very start and providing this eBook for free to intice someone to sign up is an important first step.

It was difficult to compile, but anyone can do it. All you need is Microsoft Word, a way to convert Word into PDF and lots of research.

It also take lots of time. Don't take a week to create your product. Take longer, perhaps a month. I sat on it a few hours every day or so to provide the end product.

You will want to have an email list. Maybe not so much at the start of your site, but more as you create content and have people wanting to use your site for advertising.

It is a fantastic way to talk to your readers without posting, and it is much more direct when your message is sitting in their Inbox.

It's also great to be able to do it all for free. It costs $19 a month at Aweber. Why pay that when you can do it for free?

Tips to remember

MailChimp is free to use only if you have less than 2000 people in your list. So if you have more, you are doing great and should cash up and join MailChimp. It won't let you down.

Aweber is seen as perhaps the big player in email marketing. It may seem more professional using it over MailChimp. It's up to you, but I honestly don't see the big difference in the overall scheme of things. You can always take your list once you reach 2000 over to Aweber and sign up with them if you can afford their fees.

Creating a form with Google Documents can be tricky for the first timer. It was for me. Remember, select Forms to create your form. Follow the instructions from there.